It Changes Everything
by Aurora West
Summary: You know what they say about sex. Four times Juliet thinks about her relationship with Ben. [BenJuliet]


Disclaimer: I have absolutely no rights to LOST. In addition, the titles of each vignette in this piece are inspired by and named after songs; the lyrics and authors of them are at the end. 

It Changes Everything

Furnace Room Lullaby

"All night, all I hear, all I hear's your heart"

I want to break you hurt you the way you've hurt me. I want to make you feel like you're being suffocated. Raked over hot coals. That's why I do it. That's why I take this other man to my bed. He wants me and I want him and I don't want you and I wish that just once I could see pain in your eyes when you see us together. He kisses me where you used to on my neck on my breasts on my thighs everywhere that you thought was yours. He knows exactly where to put his hands without me even telling him like I had to tell you and he touches me the way you never will again and I'm glad. If you're going to make me stay if you won't let me leave if you keep me here in this hell then I'll use every weapon I can against you.

Can you hear us? Can you hear my desire my pleasure my repudiation of you? Why do you pretend it doesn't bother you when I know it does?

I hear your heart beating sometimes at night across the empty black spaces between us separating us and I feel choked that we are still so intimately connected, you and I.

But this is how it is. You have a problem and won't back down and I will do what I have to and if I lose myself totally if my humanity goes the way of yours then I don't care because I want to go home, Ben, I want to go home. You've taught me how to get what I want and I will make you proud and you will remember me by what I've done here by these deeds that have made me.

I want to break you and then maybe just maybe your heart won't echo in my ears all night.

Beauty on the Fire

"Here it comes again, you raise the bar even higher; I cannot catch my breath"

Your hand just brushed my elbow and sent such a shock through me that for a second, I couldn't breathe. The thing is, I'm not that kind of woman, not at all. I can't remember the last time I felt desire or passion, and now suddenly, there's you. Here. Watching over my shoulder as I do your work-up, asking me all sorts of questions and gazing at me so intently. Walking with me after another bad day in the lab, reassuring me how important and brilliant I am, stopping just short of putting your hand on my back to comfort me. Sitting on the sofa in my living room, talking about nothing and everything, never touching each other, not deliberately.

We both know that there will be no going back once we do. At least I think you know. I think that's why you hold back, why even though sometimes it seems like an invisible cord is drawing us closer, you take that step back and break it.

And I am grateful, I think, once the heady rush of your nearness subsides. My desire feels like the edge of a precipice and I don't know if I can fly. The only way to find out is to jump, and I don't want to fall. I don't want to be scarred forever by this encounter. So much of me is afraid of being lost forever.

This isn't like me, I swear. Of course I've lost myself in daydreams in the middle of running through columns of test results. But they've never been like this. I've never had to go stand under an air conditioning vent, just to take away the hot flush from my face. I've never fantasized about all the different ways that I could possibly come together with a man. Anything can happen, anywhere, in my head, and it does. When we touch, finally, in my daydreams, there is always that electric shock that I feel simply by being near you. I don't know what it will really feel like when you eventually put your arms around me and I run my hands over your back and under your shirt --

See, here it comes again. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to outrun my desire, but I can't possibly, and I don't want to, anyway. There's this part of me that's always holding back, and it doesn't want me to be lost. But I think I am, or if I'm not yet, then maybe that's what I want. I want you, and maybe that's enough for now.

You say you're sorry for bumping into me, but I'm looking into your eyes, Ben. And you're not. "It's okay," I say, and I make sure my hips brush yours as I slip past you.

I'll assume I can fly.

Cold Light

"I'd rather die then hear good-bye and watch you go"

You are not what I thought you would be. Every day, you surprise me in little ways. The depth of your need for me is shocking. But I like it. You know so much about me from that file of yours; did you know that you would feel this way about me? Could you have imagined us in the lab at midnight, our shirts half off and your hand between my legs, our panting loud in the still, hot night? Did you think you would grab my arm as I got out of your bed and ask me to spend the night, that we would sleep together, naked, until dawn? That we would feel like teenagers as I snuck out before anyone else was awake? That you wouldn't be able to bear watching me go?

You don't act the way I thought you would. You don't seem like a man who should harbor such desire. You don't seem like you need anyone's help, so the fact that you need mine for this is surprising. But I like it. I like that you're mine and I don't have to share you with anyone, even in the past.

You are not what I thought you would be.

But I like it.

I Hate the Way You Love

"My words fell into the road; I saw it starting to happen, and I could not collect them before they were rolled"

Sometimes I don't even want to hear you say that you love me. Is it love to blackmail me and then hold your so-called charity over my head? Is it, Ben? I used to be happy enough staying here. Being here. With you. You took awhile to show me the depths you can lower yourself to and that part of your soul that you've given up in order to hold on to your power here.

I think you hate yourself sometimes. I think you wish you could be a better man and that you don't feel worthy of me, and that's why you're the way you are. That's why you exploit people's weaknesses, because you can't bear for anyone to know you have one. And for it to be something as prosaic as family and a woman, well. You probably wish I didn't know. That's what happens, though, when you invite someone into your head and heart and bed and everywhere else in your life.

I saw this starting to happen long ago, but back then I didn't want to put an end to us. After Sabine died it all started to unravel; I started coming apart but I loved you, God help me, I did. I couldn't see I was losing myself to this island. To you. I needed reflection, and I've gotten it now. My work is useless, there's no solution, and I've had plenty of time to think while accomplishing nothing. The funny thing is, I still feel like sometimes I can't see. Like my eyes are too small to see the picture of my life beyond the porch or the kitchen or this bed that I lie in with you, night after night.

I hate the way you love, I swear I do. But I don't hate you; can't hate you. Don't have the heart to hate you, maybe. We share too much, you and I. There are secrets between us, secrets without names or words. The kinds of secrets that are shared in the dark of the night when sweaty limbs entwine in sweat and sex soaked sheets. They bind us. They always will.

It amazes me that we still make love. Do you not see that I'm turning into a time bomb? Any week, any day, any hour now, I'm going to blow. I've almost had it. I'm not the woman I was when I got here. I'm not the woman that you fell in love with.

Tick, tick, Ben.

Lyrics

"Furnace Room Lullaby" - Neko Case, "Furnace Room Lullaby"

All night, all I hear, all I hear's your heart  
How come, how come

I twisted you over and under to take you  
The coals went so wild as they swallowed the rest  
I twisted you under and under to break you  
I just couldn't breathe with your throne on my chest

So far under the bed  
Into the beams you've gone  
I've gone, you've gone

I'm wrapped in the depths of these deeds that have made me  
I can't bring a sound from my head though I try  
I can't seem to find my way up from the basement  
A demon holds my place on earth till I die

"Beauty on the Fire" - Natalie Imbruglia, "White Lilies Island"

Here it comes again.  
Cannot out run my desire.  
Cover my descent and throw the beauty on the fire.  
Drawn towards the edge.  
Do I assume I could fly?  
Every secret shared.  
Why do I drink the feelings dry?  
Don't go too far - limitation scars.

Tonight, could I be lost forever?  
To drown my soul in sensory pleasure.

Here it comes again.  
You raise the bar even higher.  
I cannot catch my breath.  
So throw the beauty on the fire.  
Don't push too hard - limitation scars.

(Could you watch me fall?  
Could you watch at all?  
Could you watch me fall?  
Another night I'm gone.  
Could you be lost too?  
Is it gonna stop?)

"Cold Light" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Fever to Tell"

Cold light  
Hot night  
Be my heater be my lover  
And we could do it to each other  
Go go go go.

Ride daddy ride  
Ride out the tide  
I'd rather die  
Then hear good-bye  
And watch you go  
Go go go

"I Hate the Way You Love" - The Kills, "No Wow"

I, I, I can't get full  
Please could you take my shakes  
And would you hold them still  
My words fell into the road  
I saw it starting to happen  
And I could not collect them  
Before they were rolled  
I could not collect them  
Before they were rolled

You love, you love, you love  
I hate the way you love  
I hate the way you love

May I look into your glass  
Because I need some reflection  
Yeah, I know it won't last  
And look it's already over  
And I did not have the heart  
No I did not have the heart  
I was losing a button  
Right from the start  
I was losing a button  
I was coming apart  
I was coming apart

I know I've seen you before  
You bored me then and now you just bore me some more  
The clock gets locked, locked  
Tick tick, tick-tick-tick, stop, stop!  
And now I can't get full  
Please could you take my shakes  
My eyes feel spikey and small  
And I can't get no picture on them at all  
I can't get no picture on them at all


End file.
